


The End of Spring

by MegaWallflower



Category: Naruto
Genre: Fluff, Hospitals, Kissing, M/M, PoV Might Guy, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 06:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21070754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegaWallflower/pseuds/MegaWallflower
Summary: Guy wakes up in the hospital, and slowly realizes that he’s still alive.





	The End of Spring

“Are you awake? For real, this time?” Kakashi asked without preamble, and—response too long in coming—he demanded again, “Guy. Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

Guy blinked, turning to face the visitor that dominated the doorway. His profile cast long shadows across the floor from the light streaming through the window.

That wasn’t Guy’s doorway. It wasn’t Kakashi’s, either. The startled seconds spent in silence between them were the longest in his memory, and navigating his own thoughts felt as difficult and grating as swimming through quicksand. The words were slow to sink in.

_Awake_… Was he awake? That didn’t make sense.

Consciousness had come and gone in irregular spurts for a while now, and Guy had lost the ability to tell it apart from dreams. When he closed his eyes, it was spring, and he was burning to ash. He expected to open his eyes again in heaven, to see his father and Sakumo again. His mind finally caught up to him and he groggily focused on the world before his eyes.

This was not heaven. Duy was not here.

This was a hospital. That was Kakashi.

Kakashi…?

The gentle caress of summer light made Kakashi look like an angel, and Guy wondered for a second if this was heaven, after all. Then Kakashi’s eyes narrowed into a glare, and he grumbled, “Still not all there, huh? Guy, you idiot…”

He sounded irritated, furious even. And… heartbroken? Guy’s heart beat faster than it ever had in battle. “W…Who are you calling an idiot, Rival?” he stuttered, nearly incomprehensible.

Kakashi looked at him as though he’d heard a ghost, so Guy wondered if the question might have come out just as disjointed as it sounded to his own ears. He moved to rise, but Kakashi’s sharpened glare alarmed him into stillness. There was an urgency to Kakashi that Guy wasn’t used to.

Suddenly, Guy was being crushed against a broad chest, and his face turned ten shades of red. Guy fisted his hands into Kakashi’s shirt as he slowly realized this was a hug, not an attack. “K—Kakashi?!”

“Damn it,” he mumbled, angry with himself or with Guy, it was hard to tell. He nuzzled his face into Guy’s hair. “What took you so long? I missed you.”

The shaky sincerity in Kakashi’s voice spoke volumes of this man Guy had grown to love. Guy looked up, disturbing Kakashi’s hold on him, and when Guy finally found words to answer him with, his voice was strained, but strong. “I… missed you, too.”

Kakashi pulled back into the hug, climbing onto the hospital bed with Guy, and Guy could feel Kakashi’s mouth move, muffled against Guy’s hair, working to form words that seemed too hard for Kakashi to actually say. They sat in a raw silence while their breathing calmed down.

Guy, as sensitive to Kakashi’s disquiet as ever, rubbed his hand in slow circles against Kakashi’s back. His chest rumbled beneath him. Guy’s hand stilled.

And then Kakashi started to laugh, quietly, softly, and when he pulled away, Guy was alarmed to see that he was also crying, somehow. Only a little, but the tears were there. As one escaped and rolled down his cheek, Kakashi smiled so wide, it hurt to look at him.

His eyes were so full of emotion that Guy might have jokingly teased him about it, if Guy wasn’t too choked up to speak. Kakashi’s two-eyed gaze was harder than ever now, cutting right through him. Guy felt like glass.

Like a spell was broken, Kakashi shook his head and found his voice again. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you call me rival again.” He exhaled, flushing ever so slightly and looking abashed. He pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger like he was nursing a headache. Guy took Kakashi’s free hand in his own weakly, and Kakashi squeezed back painfully. “You’re really just too much, Guy.”

Rather untowardly, Guy’s mind was stuck on the fact that Kakashi’s manly profile looked all the more handsome, outlined in shadow and light like that. He looked a little different than he used to, but Guy couldn’t figure out how, exactly. It was an unimportant thing to focus on, but it was all Guy’s reawakening mind could manage to think about. Guy continued to examine Kakashi’s hand, failing to register his own injuries and fixating on the bruises on Kakashi’s hands instead.

Kakashi finally tugged his hand away. “You’re alive. Guy, you’re alive. You’re not dead. You’re alive and you’re talking again, and…” He reached out and gently grasped Guy’s shoulders, still in a daze. “I missed you…”

Guy’s bandaged hands rung around each other twitchily. When Kakashi spoke like that, it made Guy’s heart constrict in pain. He let out another shaky breath and laughed at himself, then ran a hand through his long, black hair. When had it grown so much? How long was Guy asleep? “…I’m alive. I’m back, Kakashi. Our rivalry is far from over. Did you think I’d vanish while you had the lead?”

And somehow, with those words, everything became more real. Kakashi laughed again, and Guy felt it more than he heard it, and it was only then that he realized that he really was alive. Slowly, methodically, like he was asking for permission, Kakashi leaned forward and pressed his head against Guy’s heart. “You’re alive.”

“I’m alive,” he agreed.

Guy could feel his masked lips curve again Guy’s skin when Kakashi laughed again. Then, Kakashi pulled his mask down and pulled his head away, holding Guy’s gaze as he leaned back in to pull a kiss from his lips that did nothing but make Guy want Kakashi to do it again and again and again.

In the years they had known each other, Kakashi and Guy had kissed a few times, for various, ostensibly non-romantic reasons. Challenges, experimentation, boredom, just being hormonal teenagers… Each kiss had always brought with it a new and genuine rush of emotion, from heady to chaste and every tenderness between. This one, however, felt different. Guy couldn’t quite place the feeling. It was warm, though. Sincere. Alive. He let himself sink into its comfort, basking in Kakashi and the sunlight.

Spring was over. Summer held the warmth of its days. As cicadas clicked outside the window, heat blossomed. Guy’s hand tangled into Kakashi’s hair, and Kakashi pulled in closer, deepening the kiss.

There was still so much to consider, but for now, Kakashi and Guy just shared this moment and listened to each other’s heartbeats. Guy was still unsure why he hadn’t died and what the future would bring, but Kakashi lips tasted like hope to him, and that was enough to silence the confusion before he could even think to voice it.


End file.
